Amy Winehouse's ex brother-in-law died of heroin overdose in Leeds B&B after hospital escape - inquest ruling

Freddy Civil, the younger brother of the singer's ex-partner Blake Fielder-Civil, died on April 26 last year, with coroner Oliver Longstaff ruling this was due to “misadventure”.

Jurors were told Mr Civil, 27, had absconded from Fieldhead Hospital in Wakefield, before checking into a £40-a-night B&B in Leeds and taking the fatal dose of drugs. Medics were called to the hotel, where Mr Civil was staying with a friend and found him face down in just his underpants, and he was tragically pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Fielder-Civil, who was married to Amy Winehouse for two years, attended the inquest at Wakefield Coroners Court. Jurors heard no external injuries were found on Mr Civil’s body but his mum, Georgette Civil, raised concerns about his care in the secure mental health unit where he had been detained since 2018.

In his closing report, Mr Longstaff said there was evidence to suggest that Mr Civil had been “frustrated” by the slow progress of his treatment. He wrote: “The evidence presented to the jury leads us to conclude that Freddy was frustrated by the lack of progress with treatment for substance misuse, his lack of trust for staff at Newton Lodge, the restrictions on his activities at Newton Lodge due to the Covid-19 pandemic and his weight.

“It was evident that Freddy's personal conviction, that his Mental Health Act Tribunal application was bound to fail, in addition to the above factors, motivated his actions on 26 April 2021. When Freddy injected himself with heroin, he did not intend either to harm himself or to take his own life.”

The report stated that Mr Civil died primarily from “heroin toxicity” with “Alprazolam, Promethazine, Mirtazapine and alcohol use” contributing to his passing. Pathologist Lisa Barker had previously told jurors that he had a ‘fatal level of morphine’ in his body that was from the injection of heroin. An internal examination found he had choked on his own vomit.

The inquest heard Mr Civil, who was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, had been made subject to a hospital order by a judge after being sentenced to HMP Leeds for a crime that was not specified. He had been detained under the Mental Health Act at Newton Lodge, a medium security unit in the grounds of Fieldhead Hospital since the autumn of 2018.

Jurors were told he had initially been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but that it was likely drug-induced rather than a mental disorder.

On the morning of his death, he had been escorted to an area of the hotel where patients can do their banking and withdrawn around £100 cash and bought a drink from a shop. But on his way back to his wing of the hospital, he gave the staff member escorting him the slip and ran out of the grounds of the unit.

Mr Fielder-Civil previously admitted being the person who first gave Ms Winehouse heroin. The Back to Black singer died aged just 27 in 2011 of alcohol poisoning after a much-publicised battle with drink and drug addiction.